


The Scarf

by Pixel_Runner



Series: Building Empire [3]
Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Author Is Sleep Deprived, F/M, Knitting, Not a Knitter, Not a Mary Sue, Sleep Deprivation, So Little Beta Reading, So much angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-22
Updated: 2017-06-22
Packaged: 2018-11-17 06:00:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11269389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pixel_Runner/pseuds/Pixel_Runner
Summary: Amelia can't sleep.Set between the chapters Eavesdropping and Arrangements in Buying Loyalty.  The prompt was:You mentioned very quickly in one of the chapters Yondu taking off a scarf Amelia knit for him (Went back to check-it was before he and Kraglin got down to business in Like a Kangaroo.)So, perhaps the story behind that?





	The Scarf

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LadyAzure971](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyAzure971/gifts).



> This is what you get on night shift number three. I reserve the right to take this down and try again when I'm working days. All mistakes are mine. I don't actually knit by my source tells me this is totally do-able for an experienced knitter and suggested this yarn:
> 
> http://www.knitpicks.com/yarns/Capra_DK_Yarn__D5420109.html
> 
> And this stitch pattern:  
> http://dreamsinfiber.blogspot.ca/2009/07/hermoines-everyday-socks-free-pattern.html
> 
> If you knit Yondu's scarf, please, please send me pictures!

Karen woke up with a start.  The nightmares had found her again.  It made no rational sense that when Creepy Blue guy was cuddled up behind her, she slept just fine, but as soon as he rolled over she woke up.  She could still feel where her belly was sweaty from his hand being there a few moments ago.

 

She lay there in the pitch blackness.  At least for her.  She was pretty sure those weird, pink, albino like eyes could see just fine.  The lay out of the room wasn’t too hard to memorize though. Through the door, there was a desk covered in crap to your right and a small circle table with four chairs to your left.    Past the table was a bump out on the left wall for a small closet.  This paired with the  deeper bump out for the half bath on the right made a choke point.  Past the choke point, there was a double bed on the right, as wide as the bathroom. On the left was a dresser then an arm chair next to it and a yellow circle painted on the floor in front of it. 

 

Then was the wall.  It looked black in with the lights on, but in the total darkness, she could see the stars.

 

Under the chair next to the dresser was her box of things.  If she crawled carefully out of bed and groped her way across the floor to avoid tripping on his boots, she should be able to find it without too many problems.  The box opened and she could feel the yarn.  She could knit socks in the dark, but just now she needed to turn the heel and that she couldn’t do with out light.  Likewise, she couldn’t cast on a new pair and most of her yarn was in skeins not balls, which made it impossible to knit in the dark.

 

Careful fingers inventoried the box.  There were three balls of Capra in platinum.  They were ready to go, all lovely and soft.  And the 4mm needles were easy to distinguish by feel from her 2.25 mm sock needles or her 6mm sweater needles.

 

Casting on in the dark wasn’t a challenge.  A scarf would be about 60 stitches and she had Hermione’s Everyday sock pattern memorized.  It was good both sides.  She wasn’t sure how long she knit.  Until her heart rate had slowed and there was any hope of going back to sleep.  Put the scarf back into the box.  Crawl carefully across the floor.  Wiggle back into bed.

 

He mumbled something she couldn’t understand, but tucked her back up against him.  She tried to relax against his warmth. 

 

She wasn’t complaining that he bought her wool.  It made her uncomfortable that he had rationalized it as controlling her addictions. It also scared the crap out of her that she was cargo.  He wasn't hurting her, “preventing damage before delivery” he had said.  God only knew about the person he would be selling her to would treat her.  Everyone here was scary looking, with bad teeth and weird hair.

 

Except for Peter who was scary in her own, private messed up way.

 

——

 

Her name was Amelia now.  She was pretty sure she was slowing dying from sleep deprivation.  She had been here a couple of days now and hadn’t slept through the night once.  She was so tired she felt nauseous all the time.  The scarf felt about a foot long or so now.  She tried not to look at it durning the day. She couldn’t feel any mistakes, but she hadn't ever seen the scarf in the light and wasn’t keen to look to hard.  It had become a game.  Would she be able to knit the whole thing with out peeking?

 

She was trying really hard to learn the local language, but whenever she hesitantly tried to say anything, they all just looked at her funny.  Or flat out laughed.  She asked Yondu for the salt today and he had choked on his beer.

 

He had her cut off her hair.  At least he had let her cut it.  She thought he was going to just hold her down and shave it at one point.

 

In the mean time, Yondu was about the only person she had to talk to.  Winch walked her like she was a dog.  Peter was… still scary and he had a messed up idea of how Earth worked.  Mostly he just ignored her.  Kraglin was fine, but he tended to talk to Yondu and just ignored her.  

 

She was always in the way. She was always tired and hungry and scared.  Everything, everyone was so scary.

 

Maybe it would have been better if David had just pushed her out of the airlock and gotten it over with.

 

Maybe Yondu still would.  Whenever she caught him looking at her, he was frowning slightly.

 

Everyone else has a job to do and he would shout at them to do it, occasionally hitting the back of their head if he was annoyed.  When they did well, he would laugh and clap them on the back.

 

Amelia didn't have a job.  He never shouted at her, he never hit her.  He would just look over at her, sitting in the corner, trying to make herself as small and unnoticeable as she could and frown.

 

She knew she was more trouble than she was worth.  She was contributing nothing.  She was good for nothing.  He didn’t want her in his bed, but it had been days and she couldn’t make herself sleep on the floor.  She had tried, in the night when the nightmares came.  She always ended up knitting instead, for a while, before she would give up and crawl back into bed with him.

 

After she finished the first pair of socks, she had offered to make Yondu a pair.

 

He glared at her.  “ _Don’t be stupid._ ” Then he gave her a look of intense disapproval.  She hadn’t known what to say to that.  So she hadn’t said anything.  That was yesterday.  It was the only thing she said yesterday.  Today’s words where: pass the salt.  It was the only thing she had said today, and she got it wrong.

 

She was so tired. It was hard to think.  Talking didn’t seem to be worth the effort.  There wasn’t anyone to notice her silence anyway.

 

——

 

Andrei called her котенок.  It meant kitten.  He was condescending and patronizing and sexist and had not even heard of the feminist revolution.  He was also kind and friendly, in a Soviet Russia kind of way.  He laughed at her accent.  “ **You sound like some baba off the farm!** ” he said.

 

He made sure she ate.  He made sure she drank water.  He took her with him to help clean, but would always find her a corner to sleep in.  He would concentrate on trying to get her to speak.  It has taken a few days.  Now they talked philosophy and psychology and never, ever discussed Earth.  Especially the fall of the CCCP.  He never asked her about her life before Yondu bought her.  He never mentioned that she was now an owned thing instead of a person.

 

She didn't talk about how she was sure Yondu regretted the purchase.  

 

She tried to help as much as she could.  She tried so hard to be useful.  You didn't need to understand technology to run broom or whatever this was.  Or to pick up the officer’s clothing and wash them.  She could carefully fold everything and leave it in a neat stack on the bed.  She would work until either Andrei would make her stop to rest or until she just couldn’t work anymore.

 

She only passed out a couple of times before Andrei started watching her for that.

 

She had spent the day moving things.  Her back hurt.  She was sitting at the table eating.  Well, putting food in her mouth, chewing and swallowing.  She wasn’t actually tasting it.  She was running on autopilot, eyes unfocused.  She would wake up and be OK for a few hours.  Until her life caught up to her and she need to crawl into her head and hide.  That was getting easier.

 

“Amelia?”

 

Oh, right, that was her now.  She turned to look at Yondu.

 

“ _Andrei said you worked really hard today._ ”

 

Nod.

 

“ _You need an extra hot shower to help relax?_ ”

 

Shrug.

 

He took her anyway and leaned against the wall as she stood there, head bowed letting the water stream down her back.  She would periodically make it a little hotter.  About the sixth time she reach for the tap, a hand covered hers and the water was turned off.  Yondu wrapped her up in a towel and carried her back to his room, abandoning her clothing on the floor in the shower room. 

 

He set her on the bed and took the armchair across from it. He gave her a frown.  She hung her head and closed her eyes.

 

“ _Why you trying to burn yurself?_ ”

 

Shrug.

 

“ _No.  Use words.  Tell me._ ”

 

“ _I don't know._ ”

 

“ _Andrei hurting you?”_

 

Shake.  “ _No, Yondu._ ”

 

There was a long pause.  “ _Am I hurting you?  Andrei says he doesn’t think you sleep at night._ ”

 

_“You aren’t hurting me.  I am a problem and you are keeping me safe anyway.”_

 

_“Why do you think you are a problem?”_

 

Amelia struggled with that one.  “ _I know you don't want me here. I make you unhappy.”_

 

_“Now why would you go and say a thing like that?”_

 

_“Because it’s true.  You always frown when you look at me.  It’s OK.  This is way better than… than where I was when you bought me.  I’m cargo.  I just gotta stay alive long enough until you sell me to someone else.  I’m trying to be helpful.  Andrei said I worked hard today, right?”_

 

She raised her head and peaked nervously at him.  He frowned, she dropped her gaze, and closed her eyes, tears escaping from under her lashes.  She whispered, “ _I’m sorry I make you unhappy._ ”

 

Yondu fixed his face.  “ _I aint frowning ‘cuz I don’t like you.  I’m frowning because I don’t know how to take care of you and I can see I’m doing a piss poor job of it. And I don’t know how to fix it.”_

 

 _“Oh.”_ She hesitated.  “ _Andrei is taking care of me.  He makes sure I eat and rest.  He is teaching me Common.  I can't get Peter to actually learn Russian.  I keep trying, but he just leaves.  My accent isn’t very good, anyway.  Andrei is right, I …  don't really sleep at night.  I’m OK for a little while, then I wake up and worry about what is going to happen to me, once I’m no longer your cargo.”_

 

Yondu sighed.  _“Space travel isn’t fast.  You got at least a couple of years before you gotta worry about that.”_

 

_“Unless you decide you don't really need me to teach Peter and it is likely cheaper to feed me to the crew than to feed me for two years.”_

 

_“Who said anything about feeding you to the crew?”_

 

Amelia shrugged.

 

“ _Tell me who said that!_ ”

 

“ _Hix.  And Peter said the crew wanted to eat him.  Winch told me I didn’t have to worry about that because you are keeping me as a pet not a food animal._ ”

 

“ _We ain’t going to eat you!_ ”  Yondu tried to get back to the point at hand.  “ _What do you do when you wake up at night?  Just lay there and worry?_ ”

 

“ _No.  I knit.  I don’t have much time to knit during the day, it is more important that I help Andrei.  So when I can’t sleep, I get up and knit._ ”

 

_“In the darK?”_

 

_“Yes.  I am already a problem, I don't want to wake you and make it worse.”_

 

_“You aren't a problem. What do you knit in the dark?”_

 

“It’s in the box under that chair.”

 

He opened the box. There was the yarn she had picked out and a scarf.  It was about five feet long now, with a needle still stuck in one end.  The patten was a simple fleck.  It was beautiful and soft, like her.  He looked up.  She was sitting very still with her eyes squeezed tight shut.

 

_“I ain’t gonna hurt it.”_

 

_“It isn’t that.  I haven't seen it yet.  I don't want to peek.”_

 

_“Whaddya mean, you aint seen it?”_

 

_“I knit it in the darkness.  I can’t see what I’m knitting,  I just have to trust that I know what I’m doing.”_

 

Yondu looked hard at the scarf.  As near as he could tell, it was perfect _. “You made this with your eyes closed?”_

 

Blush.  Nod.  “Yes Yondu.”

 

“Holy shit.  Wow, _I can’t wait to see you wear it._ ”

 

_“I won’t wear it.”_

 

_“Why not?”_

 

_“It is made of nightmares and midnight panic. I wouldn’t…  I'm not strong enough to carry that around all day.  Plus, I’m not really expecting to live long enough to finish it.”_

 

Yondu looked hard at the project.  There wasn’t that much wool left.  She had only been here a little over a week.  It looked like there was less than a night worth of knitting left.  He stood up and pushed it into her hands.  “ _Show me._ ”

 

With out opening her eyes, she adjusted the stitches on the needles and knit and row, then turned her work and knit back.  Yondu watched in amazement for a few minutes.  “ _What do you do when you wanna stop?”_

 

_“Um, I just stop.”_

 

_“No, I mean …  make it be finished so it ain’t on a stick no more.”_

 

_“Um… I need the little hook tool from the box.”_

 

Yondu found it and handed it to her.  She still didn’t look as she did something that had the loops fold over themselves.  Eventually she got to the end.  _"Then I cut here and pull the yarn through the loop.”_

 

Yondu did that part.  “ _OK you can look now.  You survived the scarf._ ”

 

She opened her eyes and looked at him.  “ _I still don’t think I could wear it._ ”

 

_“Because it is made of nightmares and panic?”_

 

_“It’s stupid but-“_

 

_“Can I have it?”_

 

_“What?”_

 

_“Let me worry about the nightmares and panic.  I got big shoulders, I can carry that weight.  You can let it go now.  You are safe.  I got this.”_

 

_She just looked at him._

 

_“I mean it.  I am going to keep you safe.  I might not know how it make it better, but I promise you are safe here.  I ain't gonna let no one get away with hurting you.”_

 

That night, when Amelia woke up and went to crawl out of bed, Yondu caught her and dragged her back to him.  _“You are safe.  Go back to sleep.”_

**Author's Note:**

> Only one crew member said anything about the scarf. Yondu hit him hard enough to brake his jaw while shouting: “This scarf is made of fucking nightmares, bitch!”
> 
> They don't have a medic at the time.
> 
> After that, no one mentioned it.
> 
> I can't image why.
> 
> This also explains why Amelia needs to tell Yondu she is just going to pee to get out of bed.
> 
> Please leave a comment and let me know what you think. Comments really are the only thing I get out of posting to AO3 instead of just letting my work live on my computer.


End file.
